


I Got Stamina

by ohhstark



Series: bulletproof [1]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Resolved Sexual Tension, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Time Loop, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-08-24 02:22:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 14,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8352775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohhstark/pseuds/ohhstark
Summary: It’s a stranger’s eyes she sees looking back at her and she doesn’t know which is harder. That he doesn’t know her. Or that she doesn’t even know herself.





	1. Chapter 1

She blinks awake and for a moment, it’s beyond disorienting to see that frosted glass and feel 200 years of sleep clinging to her eyes. It’s impossible and yet…

She closes her eyes, squeezes once and twice and three times over to try to push the sight before her back into whatever black hole it managed to claw its way out of. But it doesn’t go away. It doesn’t disappear. And there is nothing for her to do. 

Her hands twist on themselves and her nails, now perfectly manicured and neat (the nails of a bonafide Sanctuary Hills housewife), press white crescent moons to the inside of her palms. Her jaw clenches and the ache is real enough to make her doubt. 

She makes to close her eyes. Maybe if she just thinks on it hard enough, focuses on the last thing she remembers. But it’s too late. She’d forgotten this, she realizes. She’d forgotten the confusion, the panic, the utter heartbreak of this moment. 

The sound of voices, muffled but there, finds her. She watches him slink down the hallway, his hand at his waist and his smile set firmly on his face. She watches the cryo hatch directly across from her open, revealing Nate and their baby cradled fast in his arms. She can do nothing as the frost clears, as the gunshot pierces flesh and bone, as her baby is snatched away for the second time, and Kellogg grins at her through the glass. 

He turns from her. The cold seeps back into her mind, slowing her thoughts and freezing her anger in time. She tastes blood in her mouth where she bit the inside of her cheek. She closes her eyes and sleeps. 

***

She wakes from the cryosleep for the first second time. She’s groggy, but she knows now. She isn’t some pale Vaulter, fresh-faced with fear gripping her heart. She spits blood onto the floor of the chamber and feels a sick satisfaction when she sees the cold metal marred with red. 

She is a little nauseous as she pulls Nate’s wedding ring off of his hand. It’s cold, but malleable still. She looks and looks at him, waiting for those bright blue eyes to look at her one last time. He could be asleep but for the dried red rust on his chest and the too-fresh memory of gunshots and Shaun's helpless wails still turning circles inside her mind. His body is so still. So is everything inside of her as she turns and stumbles out of the Vault and into the irradiated sunlight. 

There isn’t a soul she could talk to. There isn’t a soul who would believe her, even if she could. So she sticks with what she knows, what she remembers. She finds Preston and listens with a face hard as stone to Mama Murphy’s wild predictions. It hurts to be with these people, her people, when they don’t know her yet. It hurts, but it is nothing to when she finds Nick again. She’d always had a soft spot for him and it’s hard not to rush forward and throw her arms around him when she rescues him from Skinny Malone for the second time. But it’s a stranger’s eyes she sees looking back at her. She doesn’t know which is harder. 

That he doesn’t know her. Or that she doesn’t even know herself.

***

She’s figured out she must be dreaming. She has to be. It’s the only explanation. The only thing that feels right. The only thing that makes sense. She’s been through this string of events before and all the old words and all the new ones bouncing around in her head are stuck like tar at the back of her tongue. 

No one seems wise to the facts. The facts. Like it’s as easy as all that. The last thing she remembers is the soft rasp of skin on skin, an explosion, and a mushroom cloud billowing out of a crater where The Institute once stood. There were tears in her eyes that never had the chance to fall and a scream rising in her throat that never pierced the air. There was no flash of light, no deafening screech of sound. One moment she’d been there atop the Mass Fusion Building and in the next, she’d awakened cold and alone six months in the past. There are no facts, at least none that she can see.

Maybe this is the universe giving her a second chance. Maybe this is the universe telling her to do better. Or maybe, just maybe, this is the universe’s way of showing her there were no second chances, there was no such thing as doing better. Maybe this is payback for the blood she’d spilled and the lives she ruined without a second thought.

She doesn’t know how this is happening or why, and it’s hard to let go even a little. Piper doesn’t trust her. She sees it every time she looks at the young reporter, every time she spares her a smile. It stings, but it can't hold a candle to the disappointment on Nick’s face every time she kills rather than show mercy. The Commonwealth has hardened her heart and it’s difficult to feel even a little sympathy for men and women who ally themselves with slavers and fanatics, let alone the people she’s supposed to be helping.

But the hardest part of all comes later. Not much later than the first time through, but she hadn’t been stalling then. She hadn’t known what was waiting for her. 

There’s only so long that she can go without heading toward Goodneighbor to find The Memory Den. The settlement quests have ground to a halt and she feels like she’s about to crawl out of her skin every time she hears someone laugh, every time the wind blows. So she gathers her things and tells Nick she’ll meet him in Goodneighbor. 

“You don’t want company on the road?” he says and it hurts when she hears the hesitance in his voice. The hesitance that feels like relief coming from the man that she’d once called her best friend.

“Nah, I’ll have Dogmeat,” she says. At that, the dog jumps to his feet and barks happily at the prospect of being on the road again. He’s the only one she hasn’t managed to push away. 

“I’ll see you there, then,” Nick says and goes back to fiddling with the old radio lying in pieces around his huddled form. She lingers, watching him, and then turns to go with a heavy heart.

She makes it a day before she gets blown to pieces by a frag mine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a small project for myself in preparation for Nanowrimo. Time Loop fics are one of my greatest fic trope weaknesses and I'm a little surprised that it isn't something I've seen much in the Fallout fandom. So, here's my small contribution to that. It's very rough, but I hope you all can bear with me. I'm going to try to update every few days, so keep checking back! Please review if you have the chance. (It keeps this author going, seriously.)


	2. Chapter 2

She wakes up for the third time and screams herself hoarse. She breaks her hand trying to get through the glass. This is no dream and she isn’t just angry when she sees Kellogg’s fingers tighten around the trigger. It isn’t anger when she sees Shaun whisked away. It’s hatred and oh, it burns. It tears through her, leaving gaping wounds that fester with ragged edges. She wonders if it will ever go away, that rage. 

He took everything from her. Her baby. Her husband. And for what? 

She falls asleep, her broken hand cradled to her chest, and hopes that she doesn’t wake up again. 

She does. And the hate is still there. Smoldering embers now, a slow-burning thing tucked into the split seams of her heart. So she slips from the cryo chamber without looking at the ghost she leaves behind and rummages through desks until she finds a Stimpak. She slides the needle home, feels the rush of stimulants through her system, but she’s still empty of everything but the hate.

She makes it to Concord and takes on the Deathclaw with nothing but the pistol at her waist. 

She dies choking on her own blood.

***

She swears there is blood in her mouth. That thick taste of iron clings to the back of her throat and she _swears_. 

It’s all in her head, but she can’t shake the feeling. She takes a breath and steps out of her own personal hell. And it’s only then, the cold biting at the tips of her fingers that she realizes. Nate is already dead. Shaun is already gone. She didn’t see Kellogg this time. 

Does it really matter, she thinks. It still happened, it will always happen. Except this time she didn’t have to see it.

She doesn’t spare even moment wondering why. Just grateful for this brief gift. That is when she decides.

This time, she doesn’t go to Concord. She doesn’t make it to Diamond City. She heads straight to Goodneighbor. God damn her, but she has to see him. 

She fights her way through the Ghouls and the Mutants and the Raiders and stumbles through the doors of Goodneighbor looking worse than she ever has before. Finn doesn’t even question her. Not when he sees the flash of steel gripped tight in her fingers and the feral grin etched in dirt and sweat and gore across her face.

“Easy there, sister. Most folks don’t take kindly to havin’ a gun waved in their face from a stranger.” 

That voice. Christ, but she’d missed it. She didn’t even realize how much until that smooth drawl curled its way up her spine. Makes her think of. Well. It’s been a long couple of days, or weeks, she’s not even sure at this point.

Someone gasps, the sound raw and strangled and grating across her skin. It isn’t until his hand touches her shoulder and the sound comes again that she finds she can’t breathe and her hands are shaking. 

This was a mistake. She isn’t ready. She isn’t…

“Let’s get you inside, sister,” he says and drapes his coat around her shoulders. He steers her by the arm towards the State House without another word. They ascend the stairs together and if she wasn’t so out of it, she’d see the bitter irony in that. Untouchable, the two of them, but for this thing between them. Only, he doesn’t know it yet. Can’t know it. Because for him, this is the first time. This is the only time. 

“You mind sharing’ what the fuck that was back there? I’ve seen some shit in this town, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen Finn turn from new blood with his tail between his legs,” he says. She expects him to laugh, she expects him to...she doesn’t know what she expects. But it isn’t this. It isn’t this cold, calculating look from the man that she. Well. 

“I-,” she starts, her voice cracking around the word like fractured glass. She clears her throat and tries again. “I’m sorry.” 

“I hope that isn’t the extent of your explanation.” The words bite, but there is something soft at the edges of his eyes now, so she figures it’s as good a start as any. What exactly can she say to him? That she knows him from another life? Another time line? Fuck, even in her head, it sounds crazy. Of course, he’s always been particularly good with crazy. Especially hers.

“I’m not...from around here,” she says.

“Kinda figured that,” he replies, gesturing to the length of her. She looks down and sees the blue of her vault suit. 

“Well, it’s a little more complicated than that. I’ve been frozen for about two hundred years, give or take a decade.

“And this isn’t the first time we’ve met.”

She doesn’t mince words this time around, that’s for sure. And she finds...she doesn’t really want to. If there is going to be a next time, which there will be she’s sure of it, then it’s not like he’ll remember anyway. It’s not like she has anything to lose. 

“You on something, sister? Jet? Psycho?” he asks. 

“I wish,” she says and she’s surprised by the bitter edge to her words. She sinks down onto his couch and puts her face in her hands. His coat bunches up around her and she finds it’s almost as good as the real thing. It’s almost like having him wrapped around her. She sucks in a breath, but before the words can run out of her, the world goes dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OH MY GOSH THE RESPONSE FOR THIS FIC THOUGH!!!! Thank you all so, so much. I was really nervous about posting this story because it's so different and because it might not all make sense, but I'm loving the response so far. Thank you for reading and reviewing, for the kudos and the subscriptions. I really appreciate it. I can't wait to see what you guys think of this installment.


	3. Chapter 3

The fourth and fifth times, she uses as trial and error. More error than anything, but, well...who is there to remember but her?

The fourth loop, she tries to recreate everything she did before. She goes to Sanctuary Hills and feigns surprise when Codsworth drops the “200 years” bomb. She goes to Red Rocket, scratches Dogmeat behind the ears, and invites him along to Concord. She takes down the Deathclaw and ignores Mama Murphy boring holes into the back of her skull as she leads them back to Sanctuary. 

Preston smiles at her, awe and something like trust playing about the corners of his mouth. She smiles back and it’s nice until she gets ready to head to Diamond City. She dislikes the place on the best of days for its bigotry and injustice. But going there will lead to Piper and Nick and she isn’t sure if she can stand their mistrust for a second time. She wonders what made the first time around so easy.

“You weren’t trying so hard,” Mama Murphy says and she nearly jumps out of her skin when the older woman appears at her elbow. 

“Christ, Mama Murphy,” she says, fingernails pushing into the fleshy palms of her hands. “We need to get you a bell or something.”

“Just try it,” Mama laughs and sinks down onto the musty mattress next to her half-packed bag. She still can’t quite meet the other woman’s eyes, but it isn’t so bad now. It isn’t so bad to share the burden with someone else, even if that someone else is Mama Murphy with her veiled riddles and half-truths. Because if anyone could figure it out, it’d be her.

“The first time was so easy. How the hell did I make it through all of that without dying?”

“You’re still in the early days,” Mama Murphy says. And there’s something there, hidden in the words. She doesn’t have the patience to sort out what it might be.

“Plenty of time for me to die again, I get it. Do you have any useful advice?”

“Don’t get killed.”

“Great,” she says and turns her attention back to her bag.

“Stay the course, Nora. It’s still early days,” Mama Murphy says from the doorway and then she is gone. The words sit heavy and cold in her chest. She doesn’t know what they mean, but they feel...they feel less like a premonition and more like a promise. She doesn’t know which is worse.

***

She ends up biting the bullet (in a very literal sense) on the way to rescuing Nick. She hears Nick’s voice and she gets cocky. She ducks around a corner a second too slow, her chest heaving and a smile dying on her lips. She hears the crack of a pipe pistol, tastes the blood in her mouth, and feels the pain blooming across the back of her shoulder. It’s a slow process, dying, and she’s never experienced it quite like this before. The edges of her vision grow dark and she thinks, maybe, she sees Nick’s face pressed to the glass of his prison cell across the room.

The next thing she knows, she’s back in Vault 111 and she doesn’t have it in her to be angry again. 

She stares at Kellogg, stares at Nate’s dead body, stares at Shaun being ripped away from her. There’s that word. Inevitable. Because everything about this is inevitable. She doesn’t know why or how, but she’s stuck in this loop reliving the worst moments of her life and she is completely helpless to stop it. 

So she goes to Sanctuary and she stays there. She spends days cleaning the debris out of her house with Codsworth’s help. And she doesn’t remember Concord until Preston, Marcy, and Sturges limp their way into town with Dogmeat in tow. There is darkness in their eyes. She chokes back a sob at the thought of what must have happened to them because she wasn’t there for them. 

She goes to sleep that night, tears streaming down her face and her heart heavy in her chest. No matter what she does, she loses them. The broken people she’s collected around her like a safeguard against the world. And she’s tired. Tired of losing. Tired of wanting. 

_When will it end?_

She opens her eyes to frosted glass and a gunshot ringing in her ears. The only thing she can think is _never_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The response to this fic has been mind-blowing so far. I am so, so grateful for everyone person reading, commenting, and sending kudos my way. It's getting me through this little project in a huge way and yeah...just thank you all so much. I look forward to hearing what you all think of the chapter! <3


	4. Chapter 4

The sixth loop is different. She goes to Concord, walks the Freedom Trail, rescues Nick, helps Bobbi break into Hancock’s warehouse, hires MacCready on. All the things she did the first time through, but it feels...worn out? It feels like shoes a half a size too small. It’s too tight, too close. 

She says all the right things. They feel wrong coming out of her mouth. The words taste like dust and ash and death. She talks to Mama Murphy and it’s nice, it helps. Some days, it feels like the only thing keeping her tethered, but it isn’t enough. She misses her friends. Misses them most when they’re right beside her and they don’t remember. 

Nick doesn’t remember being her best friend. MacCready doesn’t remember getting the cure for his son. Piper doesn’t remember telling her about what happened with her family. And Hancock is the worst of all of them.

He doesn’t remember the hitch in her breath when his lips trace the constellations of freckles along her shoulders. He doesn’t remember his name in her mouth or the clench of her around his cock. He doesn’t remember her and it kills her every moment that she can’t just reach out for him, kiss him, pull him close. But there’s something withheld about him this time. He doesn’t trust her and she doesn’t understand why. Even after turning on Bobbi and helping with Pickman Gallery, he still doesn’t smile at her the way he used to. He doesn’t give her drugs just because she looks like she could use something to take the edge off (which she could). He doesn't grab her hand just _because_ and it feels like there's an impossible cavern that's grown between them.

She still loves him, but it’s not him. It’s not her Hancock. And she feels a little bit pathetic for just wanting him to look at her and see her, but she can’t help it. 

“Hey, sister, you got a second?” he says one night when she’s the one saddled with the first shift of night watch. Everyone else is asleep, so she just gestures to the empty spot of dirt next to her. She expects him to take a seat. He doesn’t. She expects him to light the cigarette twirling fast between his piano player’s fingers. He doesn’t. 

He just stands there, half draped in shadows, with the most serious look on his face she thinks she’s ever seen. 

“Something on your mind, Hancock?” she says and it’s all a bit superfluous because the answer is so obviously yes.

“I was thinking about heading back to Goodneighbor,” he says. She nods. 

“No problem. I’ve been meaning to see Kleo again. I’ve got some mods for my sniper rifle I wanted to get her opinion on,” she says and she’s proud her voice is so neutral. Traveling alone with him was always a challenge, especially now, but she knows she can handle it. She has to. “What time did you want to leave?”

“I’m leaving now,” he says, gesturing at the bags just on the edge of the firelight. Her eyes flick to the bags and back to his face and back again. His face isn’t just serious, it’s hard and ungiving. Something cold tightens in her chest and she can’t breathe.

“Why?” she manages past the lump in her throat.

“Because, I-,” he says, his voice cracking. Her chest aches and she wants to reach for him, but the distance between them is too much now. She watches his face, watches a thousand different emotions play across his cobalt eyes. Hurt. Anger. Resignation. And then, resolve. 

“Because I love you and I can’t have you. I see you every day and you don’t know what I am to you, what you are to me. And I know this doesn’t make any sense, but in a different life...in a different time we were in love and….” His voice trails away and she, she is paralyzed. She stares and wonders if this could possibly be real. 

“It doesn’t even matter,” he says, picking up his bags and throwing them over his shoulders. He turns to her and the sad, wistful smile on his face is like staring into a mirror. “Goodbye, Nora.”

And just like that, he’s gone from her. He slips into the darkness without a sound, without any trace that he was ever there except the sickly sweet smell of his mentats. She expects to close her eyes and wake up back in the vault. But the minutes trickle past and a new kind of terror grips her as it keeps going and doesn’t reset.

She stares out into the darkness and she feels it staring back at her. 

_What am I doing?_ She asks herself over and over and over again. The words trip and stumble through her mind and before she knows it, before she can question herself further, she gets up and shakes Sturges awake. 

“That time already?” he says and the words slur a bit out of his mouth. She smiles, fond of him in a way that hurts as much as anything.

“Sturges, I’m headed out of town. Can you take over the rest of my shift?”

“Of course. Everything okay?” She grins, wild and feral and free for the first time in what feels like years.

“Everything is great,” she says. Blinks. And she comes to. Mid-step out of Vault 111. But it doesn’t feel like a beginning, not really. 

_When will it end?_

And she thinks, God, but she thinks of the words muttered through his trembling lips and she feels hope for the first time. 

_Soon. Soon._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lots and lots of questions about the mechanics of time loops within this fic. All I will say (because 1. I haven't fully fleshed out what those mechanics are and 2. it wouldn't be interesting if I gave everything away right now would it?) is that everything started to go wrong when Nora blew up The Institute. And I'm hoping to get into the whys of that later on in this fic. 
> 
> When I started this project, I definitely did not intend for it to become as big or convoluted as it has, but it looks like we might be in this for the long haul? There are so many things that I want to cover and that I want to explain that I just don't see this fic ending for at least another four or five chapters, if not more. 
> 
> But anyways...as always, I'd love to hear all of your thoughts. The support for this fic is unbelievable and I want you all to know that I treasure every hit, every kudo, and every comment with all of my heart. Thank you guys so much! <3


	5. Chapter 5

Nora listens. Listens to the slow cascade of water through holes in the roof. To the leaves rustling in a gentle Spring breeze. To the sizzle, crackle, and pop of cooking in a steel pot over the fire. And feels the warmth radiating off Dogmeat stretched out against her side.

Peace in the tender moments just before sunrise. A brief pause in the chaos that is this new world.

But it isn’t peace sitting like a weighted brick on her chest. She’s wound up too tight. She’s been in this loop for a month and it’s the longest stretch since the first time. It’s been a month and she still hasn’t gone to Goodneighbor. 

She hates to admit it, even to herself, but she is terrified. She is terrified of him looking at her like a stranger. She is terrified of him looking at her like he remembers. It’s all she’s wanted since getting stuck in this never-ending hell. And now that it’s within her grasp, she doesn’t know what to do. 

Still, the hope is a bright and jagged thing pressed to the back of her throat and she can’t stand the thought of living through another time loop without touching him if he remembers her, by some miracle, again. 

Eventually, as she knew they would, the hope and the terror make the choice for her. She gets out of bed and dresses in the bright morning sun. It’s a rare day without rain, without rad storms. When she steps out of her house, a chorus of greetings rings through their ragtag group of settlers. Marcy and Jun are huddled over their growing garden, their fingers pressed to the dirt and growing piles of Tatos and Carrots at their sides. Preston and Sturges are cleaning their guns next to Mama Murphy who is poking at slices of meat over the fire. And then there's Nick with a lit cigarette between his teeth and a screwdriver tucked into his palm as he fiddles with his metal hand. She wanders over to him. 

“I’m headed to Goodneighbor. It’s time we took a trip to the Memory Den. You care to join me?” she asks him. And there, looking up at her through the morning sunlight, is that smile that she is so very, very fond of at the corners of his mouth. 

“I thought you’d never ask,” Nick says. He takes the hand she offers to pull him to his feet. His hand lingers in hers and she has to look away before he sees the tears clinging to the corners of her eyes. It’s her best friend again, even if he doesn’t know it. 

“I’ll grab my gear and then we can go,” she says and lets her fingers fall from his with only a little regret. She goes back to her house, empty and derelict as it is, and feels happiness tugging at her heart. 

Dogmeat has disappeared, but there is another visitor in her room. She finds Mama Murphy there, tucking stimpaks into the top of her pack. 

“Better safe than sorry,” Mama says with a smile. For good measure, Mama Murphy slides a packet of mentats into the front pocket as well. 

She shakes her head with a chuckle, but takes the pack from the older woman just the same.

“Does he remember me this time?” She asks the question burning through her, but finds that she doesn’t want to know the answer. Still, that hope wound tight in her chest clings to the possibilities.

“That depends.”

“On what?” 

“It depends on the luck of the draw, dear. Time, such as it is, isn’t a linear thing. This time, he will remember you,” Mama Murphy says, touching her arm briefly in the natural pause between her words. “Or he will not.”

She nods, because it’s the only thing she can do really. But she feels dread pooling like a black and viscous thing in her chest. 

***

Shots ring out and Nick pulls her down behind a rusted out car, his yellow eyes darting around wildly. She leans out, her pistol grasped so tightly that her knuckles are white. A rifle goes off and she sees it. Three streets down, there are ghouls swarming around an old, gutted brick building. The walls, what’s left of them, are bleached almost white. And leaning out of one of the holes carved from those dilapidated walls, is the telltale tricorn hat that she would know anywhere. 

There is a wild, hysterical echo of laughter as Hancock fires a shot and hits one of the ghouls in the face. It falls. And clambers to its feet again. 

“That son of a bitch,” Nick says. She jumps, not realizing that he’d leaned out around her to get a look too. “He’s drawing every ghoul this side of The Wealth.” 

“You feel like adding fuel to the fire?” She asks, nearly breathless with the sound of rushing blood in her ears. This has never happened before. She’s never met Hancock outside of Goodneighbor. And she thinks. 

_Please, let this be real. Please let him remember._

“He’d just die and come back to haunt me if I didn’t,” Nick says with a wry twist of his lips. “Let’s go.”

She feels every step forward in the frantic beat of her heart and the hollow buzzing in her ears. The only thing from keeping her from running full-tilt for him is Nick at her side. He’s at her shoulder, watching for any stray ghouls that might be attracted by the gunfire, leaving her to stare forward. To stare at that tricorn hat and pray to all the gods that might be listening.

They dart amongst the abandoned cars and debris, picking off ghouls as they go. And just as they level with the building, Hancock falls with a shout. The ghouls that made their way up to him snarl and pounce, sharks drawn to blood in the water. Nora lets loose a scream that leaves her throat raw and aching. Without a second thought, she runs forward and shoots the nearest ghoul right between the eyes. It falls and another one takes its place. 

“God dammit!” Nick exclaims, running after her. She senses the displacement of air when his bullets find their mark over her shoulder. She doesn’t even turn to watch the ghoul fall. She knows Nick has her six. 

They fight their way inside the building and up the stairs, bullets flying and clouds of dust rising with each scrape of their boots across the floor. The terror is blinding and she is so grateful for Nick at her back as she catches herself falling up the stairs. She half drags herself up the rest of the way. The first thing she sees is all the bodies and in the middle of all of them, Hancock is leaning up against the wall, hands pressed to his chest and blood seeping out beneath his shaking fingers. His eyes were closed, but as soon as he hears her crest the staircase, he tenses and goes for the shotgun at his side. His eyes fly open and it’s all she can do to get to him. She clambers over bodies and she doesn’t care. 

“Christ, are you a sight for sore eyes,” he says, voice quiet like he’s only talking to himself. She feels the heated, scorching rush of relief straight through to her core. She just nods, the lump in her throat too big for her to speak. But she has to know. She has to be sure. She reaches for him with shaking hands and it’s only when he touches the tips of his fingers to her cheek when she realizes she’s crying. 

“Hancock?” she whispers, tasting the tears at the back of her throat. His face twists and for a moment, he looks so lost and confused that it hurts to look at him. And then, wonder and hope fill his face and his fingers tense on her cheek. 

“Nora?!” he says. She nods and can’t help the laughter suddenly tumbling out of her mouth. 

“It’s me,” she says. As soon as the words are out of her, he tugs her forward into his chest. It’s awkward with his other hand still pressed to the wound in his chest and the angle is killing her knees, but she doesn’t care. She’s in his arms again and he smells and feels exactly as she remembers. She presses her smile to his neck and feels the stutter of his breath when she does. 

“What are you doing here?” Hancock asks. 

“I could ask you the same thing. What the hell were you thinking?” She pulls back and swings her bag off. She digs through it in search of the Stimpaks from Mama Murphy. She takes one out and sticks him in the arm. 

“What I’m always thinking about,” he replies, unaffected as ever with needles. “You.” She feels her mouth quirking up at the corners despite herself. She reaches for his hand and it feels so God damned _right_ when his fingers meet hers. 

“So charming,” Nick says behind them. Both of them flinch at the interruption. Hancock drops her hand and her stomach flips with guilt. She’d forgotten Nick was with her. 

“Nick-,” she starts. He raises a hand to stop her. 

“It’s alright. We have time for explanations when we get to Goodneighbor. I’ll see you there,” he says and ducks out of sight down the stairs. 

“Wait, Nick,” she says. She remembers those words. In a different place, in a different time, but no less poignant than now. After everything, she can’t have everything restart again. She can’t. She gets to her feet and grips the balustrade tight enough to make her hand hurt. She rounds the foot of the staircase just as he is stepping out into the street. He turns, half of his face in shadow and the other bathed in the dying light of the setting sun. She watches him watching her, the words held just between her teeth. 

“I don’t know what’s going on with you or how you know Hancock, but I trust you. You can explain everything when we figure out where your boy is.”

“Just,” she says. “Just promise me you’ll be careful.” He smiles at that. 

“I promise,” he says. And then, he’s gone. 

She takes a moment to gather herself. To nervously play with the frayed hem of her shirt and to settle her knotted hair around her shoulders. She looks like a complete disaster, she knows. But she also knows Hancock couldn’t care less. 

She stops stalling and goes back upstairs. She thumps up the stairs, her heart in her throat again. They’ve gotten past the hard part already, but it doesn’t feel like that. There is no Nick to interrupt them now. It’s just the two of them together again. And it’s more than a little exciting. More than a little terrifying.

She crests the stairs and there he is. Still slumped against the wall. Still surrounded by the ghouls he antagonized and killed. 

“Hey, love,” he says. 

_Love_

Like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Like it’s the only thing in the world. And maybe, maybe it is. Because God help her, but in this moment, she’s the happiest she’s ever been.

He pulls himself to his feet and comes to her side. He fits his fingers in the spaces between hers and squeezes. 

“Let’s get out of here. I know a place.” 

She nods and follows him out into the dim curtain of twilight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First off, THANK YOU ALL SO SO MUCH FOR THE SUPPORT!!! It's meant the world to me that people are reading and enjoying this fic, especially since it's a different fic than I usually write and a different sort of fic for the fandom in general. I'm so happy for every single comment, kudo, bookmark, and read. Thank you guys so much. 
> 
> Second off, two updates in two days WHAT?! Don't get your hopes up. I haven't even started chapter 6 yet, but I was really, really excited for this chapter since it's what I've been building up to and wanted to write since I started writing. I hope it lived up to your expectations. 
> 
> Third off, just as an fyi...this fic will most likely earn its "mature" rating next chapter. So if you shouldn't/don't want to read the next chapter, then maybe just skip it altogether? Either way, I'll put a note regarding that in the next update. 
> 
> Thank you guys so much. You've been amazing. I hope you enjoy this chapter! <3


	6. Chapter 6

It’s funny that there are still secrets between them, but for once she’s glad for this one. He takes her to a house tucked away behind some old buildings on the edge of town, and armed to the teeth for when he just isn’t feeling very Mayorly. For when he needed to get away from being him. 

It’s nice and she isn’t surprised exactly, but then she is. It has electricity, a rare commodity even on the best of days, and the building isn’t completely gutted. The walls are whole, the roof isn’t pockmarked with holes, and there’s even a welcome mat in front of the door. 

“Cheeky bastard,” she says as he ushers her inside, his eyes fixed to the alley behind them in case anyone tried to follow them. He laughs and closes the door, leans against it and watches her. 

She indulges him. Her eyes rove over the blue sofa pushed against the far wall of the living room, over the lamps casting the room in warm yellow light, over the cans of pork n’ beans and cram and purified water stacked on the kitchen counters.

“How did you find this place?” She asks in wonder. It’s like a perfectly preserved relic of pre-war past. Completely untouched by this new world but for the dust and dirt just inside the front door. 

“I was on a bad trip, so I don’t remember most of it, but I was running from some raiders. They started plastering me with Molotov’s and I ducked into this alley and found this place. I holed up in here for a few hours to sleep off the high and when I woke up, I figured it’d be a good place to go to get away from everything,” Hancock says. There’s something, something almost shy in the curve of his smile as he finishes his little speech. It’s impossibly endearing and she feels the skip of her heart at the sight of it.

“You want to give me the grand tour?” she says it like an invitation. He nods, his throat bobbing as he pushes off the front door and reaches for her hand. She clings to his too hot fingers. He’s scorching, burning through her lingering doubts like a fire storm. He’s here. He’s really here and it’s almost too much to hope that it won’t end again. He pulls her toward the staircase tucked into the corner between the kitchen and living room. There’s a soft light that falls across the stairs and he is etched in sharp relief and it _hurts_ to look at him. 

She can feel her pulse at the junction of her throat, can hear the rush of blood in her ears, and it’s all too much and not enough at once. 

“I love you, you know,” she says, blurts out really. The words fall out of her mouth and they feel right. She hasn’t said it yet, not this time around, and it feels important to get it out before they go any further. Considering it could be the last time left to them.

The toe of his boot catches on the top stair and his fingers tighten on hers, but it’s the only indication he gives that he heard her at all. When she clears the top stair too, he finally turns to her. His hand falls away and she feels a pang of loss until he cups each side of her face. She stares into the deep wells of his eyes. Her stomach clenches with want and need and a love so deep that it aches. 

He smiles, so sad and so fucking weary. He leans forward and she surges up to meet him, the heels of her feet arching up and up until their lips meet in a kiss that bruises and bites and tears. 

Her hands are shaking as she reaches toward him. Her fingers dip along the scars and ridges of his body beneath his shirt. He shudders at her touch, his hands finally falling from the sides of her face. They move down. Unbuttoning her shirt as he goes, his ruined hands skimming the swells of her breasts. 

She pulls away and his lips follow the column of her throat without missing a beat. The blunt edges of his teeth on the juncture of her shoulder makes her jump, makes the growing ache between her legs pulse. 

“Christ, Hancock,” she says and it’s a whisper for all that she can’t gather a full breath. 

“Good to know I’ve still got it, sister,” Hancock says and she can feel his self-satisfied smirk pressing into her shoulder. She laughs despite herself, a barely-there thing that echoes through the otherwise silent house. 

“You’re awfully smug.”

“If you wanted me to stop, just say so,” Hancock teases and makes to pull away. She wraps a leg around his hip and feels him hard and ready against her, pressed right where she needs him most. He groans, a strangled thing that never quite reaches the air between them.

“Believe me, that’s the last thing I want,” she says. 

“Fuck, I missed you,” he says, voice nearly hysterical as he backs her up against the wall. “I went to see you so many times and you never knew who I was and it fucking _killed_ me, Nora.” The words are a knife held to her heart and every time she breathes, she can feel the catch just there. Right where it hurts the most. She hates this, hates that this is happening to them, hates that she’s powerless to stop it. 

“I know,” she says, because it’s all there is to say. “I know.” 

“How was it for you? How can you stand it?” His forehead falls to her shoulder. It’s only when she reaches to cup the back of his head that she notices his hat has fallen off. She touches his neck, the feel of him against her so warm and real that she wants to cry. 

“It was awful. I only saw you twice. Once when I went straight to Goodneighbor from the vault. I fought like hell to get there with only a pistol. I don’t know how I didn’t die. Finn didn’t even try to spin his bullshit for me and when I saw you, God but I wanted you so bad it hurt. Nothing happened and it ended right after. And the second time, you knew me but you didn’t know that I knew. You told me you loved me and then you left. I let you go and when I tried to go after you, it ended.”

“Yeah,” he says and she knows that he remembers. Knows that whatever happened, it’s too soon to talk about. “And the other times?”

“I just didn’t make it to Goodneighbor. I stepped on a frag mine once. Another time I made it to Concord and took on a Deathclaw all by myself. I never thought I’d see you again for a while.”

“We’re a pair aren’t we?” he says, all self-deprecating smiles. She holds him tighter because it’s all that she can do. And when he leans back to look in her eyes, she wishes she could tell him it won’t happen again. That they won’t lose each other again. But she _can’t_ and it ruins something inside to admit that to herself. 

He nods, like he’s come to the same conclusion, and she kisses him to soothe away the furrow between his brows. He’s smiling when she leans back, eyes wet at the corners. 

“We’ll figure this shit out eventually, just like we always do,” he tells her. She senses the truth of it, those words. It isn’t much, but it’s _something,_ and it makes all the difference in the world. 

She grins and looks up at him through her eyelashes. She knows that he isn’t what most people would have chosen. He is a vigilante on the best day and a hardened criminal on the worst. But she loves him for it. Loves that he protects the people who have less than nothing. Loves that he lives without regret. Loves that he isn’t afraid of wanting more in this life that isn’t kind to those that fight back.

“We will,” she agrees and she finds, as his hands slip beneath her shirt and his lips find hers in the near-darkness, that she believes it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...holy shit. I'm not teasing you guys on purpose, I swear, but the smut just felt kind of out of place for this chapter. So it'll be in the next installment. 
> 
> The support for this fic has been amazing and I am so grateful to every one of you. Thank you all so much for your patience too. As most of you might know, National Writing Month started on Tuesday and I'm participating this year with an original idea, so I've also been working on that this week. Due to some family stuff and school stuff and just _life_ in general, I'm way behind already. But I am going to continue posting updates for this fic in between writing the stuff for Nano, so just be patient with me. I'm still here, just a little bit more preoccupied lol.  <3 <3


	7. Chapter 7

His mouth slips from her bruised lips and she can’t help the keen of longing that wrenches itself from her throat. It twists into a moan when he follows the white-hot trail of heat down the column of her neck. It’s such perfect torture: the blunt edges of his teeth, his ruined fingers digging into the flesh of her hips hard enough to bruise, and always those not-lips on her overheated skin.

He peels her shirt over her head, her hair a tangled mess falling over her shoulders. The warm spring air presses close and she thinks as her head falls back against the wall and his hot hand slips into her pants that she can see stars behind her eyelids. 

Her heart races, a thundering herd in her chest. She can’t breathe, can’t get air around the thick, dark coil of desire tensing and tensing in her every nerve ending. She doesn’t break, can’t break.

Until he presses his grin, that wild thing that she loves so much about him, to her neck and tells her to let go. And she does. The coil snaps and the stars behind her eyes implode, scattering stardust and impossible heat. Caught between his body and the wall, she spasms around his hand. Holds him close and doesn’t bother holding in his name falling like burnt sugar from her lips. He kisses her and it’s like falling in love with him all over again. 

She laughs and it’s a shaking, tremulous thing in the little space between them. 

“That was,” she starts, finally letting her arms fall away from him. 

“Yeah?” Hancock says with a grin. 

“Yeah,” she says and her heart leaps at the shine of lust in his eyes. God but he was looking at her like she was the only thing that mattered in the world, like he’d never look at anyone else again. And didn’t that just scare the shit out of her?

The shocks through her body subside and she can breathe again. Hancock pulls back, his fingers glistening with her cum. Her legs are still shaking, so she half-stumbles across the room to the bed. She sinks down and runs her hand through her impossible hair. Across the room, he finds an old shirt and cleans off his hand. When he is done, he sits down on the bed beside her. 

“You okay?” he asks, slipping off his red overcoat and tossing it over the banister. She looks up at him through her eyelashes and grins, her chest just about fit to burst at the love she feels for him. 

_Here. Alive._

“I’m good. Still pretty horny, though. Any idea where I might find a ghoul to help me out with that?” she asks and promptly laughs when he surges toward her with a growl. He bends over her and kisses her breathless, his clever fingers dragging down her body and rolling over the pink buds of her nipples. She gasps in surprise and pulls him onto the bed. He goes, pressing her down with the full, hot weight of his body, as one hand slips lower to the button of her pants. He flicks the button open and starts to slide his hand inside before she grabs his arm. 

“Stop,” she says and he does, ever the gentleman. He pulls away, questions flickering in the dark gray of his eyes. She just smiles. She hooks her calf over his hip and flips them so she is on top. The noise that he makes is enough to make her shudder with need and want and fire hot enough to burn her up from the inside. His hips cant upwards and his cock presses just _there_ into the cradle of her. She gasps and her fingers move of their own accord over his shirt, over the flag tied at his waist, over the clasp of his pants. 

Her hands are fucking shaking and when he brushes her hands away, she can’t help but laugh. 

“God, you really want me, huh?” Hancock says, all teasing smiles as he shimmies the pants down his hips. She lifts up, accommodating to the last, and helps him push his pants to his ankles. 

There are no barriers left between them. And for the first time in a long while, she feels true happiness shining through all the shit and blood and dirt. They might not have forever, but they have this and it’s fucking perfect. She lifts herself again, over the cradle of his hips, and sinks down onto him. She shudders around him and he moans, long and hard, his fingers splayed possessively over her hips. She’s going to have bruises tomorrow, if there is a tomorrow, but she finds that she doesn’t really care. 

“Shit, sister, you’re so wet,” Hancock says, voice a low husk that shoots through her like fire and lightning. She rolls her hips and smiles as he throws his head back with a strangled groan.

“Less talking, more fucking,” she says. 

“Aye, aye,” Hancock says and sits up so he has a better angle. So he can roll his hips, his cock, up into her and watch her face fracture. She’s so wet and tight and overheated for him, she knows it won't take long for either of them. Her breath catches in her throat and she leans forward, her fingertips catching him about the shoulders. 

She kisses him, a sloppy thing that almost misses the edges of his not-mouth and she tastes grape mentats and sweat and cigarettes on him. He grins, one of his hands letting go of her hips to go up into her hair. His fingers snarl in the knots, but she doesn’t care. She tilts her head back, the bare column of her throat exposed to his mouth, to his teeth. 

He leans over her, his body impossibly hot, and when he licks a line up her throat, she thrashes. Her hips roll desperately against him and he just _holds_ her. His hips trip against hers and he lets out a quaking breath that she can feel right through her. It takes him a second, but he finds his pace again. A steady thing that keeps building her higher and higher with no landing in sight. She’s half-delirious with her desire for him now, her body taut and arched like a live wire.

So when his hand slides between them and his thumb brushes against her clit, she is lost. She shatters around him, her fingers digging into his shoulders hard enough to make her bones ache. The wild slap of his hips against hers is the only thing she knows and then, he comes tumbling after her. 

“Fuck,” he mutters, his voice a mixture of disbelief and awe and wonder enough to break her heart. She holds him through it, her heart on her sleeve and tears gathering in her eyes. She presses her face to his shoulder and smiles as he falls back onto the bed, his cock already growing soft inside of her. 

“That was beautiful,” he says and she laughs, pulling back to look at him. He smiles too and brushes the tears from her face. 

“Best high you’ve ever had?” she asks. He nods, considering her with a lopsided grin that does all sorts of things to her post-orgasm brain. 

“Better than all the fucking chems in the world, sister. You always have been, even before the sex,” he says. She grins and rolls off of him to go find that spare shirt. She does, finally, his eyes watching the sway of her naked hips the whole time. She wipes herself down and hands him the shirt as she climbs back into bed and settles at his side. He tosses it back into the darkness of the room, pulling her close with his other hand. 

“You think we could stay here?” she asks, carving nonsense patterns into his bare chest. 

“‘Course we can, but we can’t forget about Nicky. He’s waiting for us in Goodneighbor.”

“I meant forever,” she says, pushing it into the air like the worst sort of secret. She knows that the Wealth is waiting for their next move. She knows that Nick is in Goodneighbor waiting for an explanation that she doesn't know how to even start to give. She knows they can’t stay here. 

“Sure, babe,” Hancock says. 

But it’s nice, for just a moment, to pretend that they can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a few things I want to say...first of all thank you all so much for your continued support. I'm hoping to have more regular updates as this week winds down. I have two exams plus the election stress plus all the other crap going on in my life that no one cares about. It's just a lot at one time, but it will get easier lol. 
> 
> Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy!


	8. Chapter 8

“Alright, Sunshine, we’ve been trapped in this room for a full day. No time resets. No ferals knocking at the door. And all my Jet is gone. We gotta move,” Hancock says as she runs her fingers through her hair. And he runs those irradiated hands of his up and down her spine. She’d feel insulted, but she knows he’s right. 

“You don’t keep a secret stash in here somewhere?”

“Already burned through it.” He’s got that lopsided grin on his face again and his eyes are glowing with mirth. It’s impossible to stay mad at him, she doesn’t bother trying.

Her fingers leave her hair and she turns to kiss the smile from his lips. She lingers, his hands moving up to cup the back of her head. She knows he’s right. They’ve been here too long and there are things they have to do. She pulls back, tracing the lines and divots of his face. 

“You’re right,” she says. “We should go.” 

“Say it again,” Hancock says, his voice a low-pitched rasp that shoots desire through like an electric rod. She shakes her head, a teasing smile curling her lips. She pulls back and sets about gathering her clothes. His eyes are on her. Glued to her swaying hips or the heavy weight of her unbound breasts, she’s not sure, but it makes her feel powerful and beautiful and like she could take on the world. Finally, his gaze falls away and he gets up to dress as well. 

“No rest for the fucking wicked,” Hancock mutters as he slides his pants back over his slim hips. She tries not to appreciate the view as much as she does, but it’s sort of impossible with that tiny furrow between his eyebrows and the twist of his not-lips. 

It’s funny, but it’s _not_ because that feeling of panic and dread and disappointment are turning in her gut too. She just wants to fold him, fold what they have, into her heart where it’s safe and whole. But all she can do, all they can do, is move forward and hope. 

In the old world, she never took much interest in religion. It all sounded like a pretty fairy tale people told themselves to make it through the darkest nights. A benevolent god who, if you were very good, would grant you eternal happiness in heaven. 

Now?

Now, she would try anything to make it through whatever it is that they’ve gotten stuck in. So, she closes her eyes and sends up a silent prayer. 

_Please let this be it. Please guide us through this._

***

Walking into Goodneighbor for the first time is terrifying enough on its own. But Hancock insists on walking in with guns blazing, quite literally, as they’d just gotten out of a firefight with some Raiders, and their hands entwined. 

“Gotta set boundaries straight off, you dig?” he says. And she doesn’t agree with him but they’re his people, so she takes his hand. Finn isn’t happy about it and Hancock slits his throat for his trouble. Blood sprays everywhere and his body falls. Steam rolls off the wound in thick tendrils that disappear in the cool morning air. 

“Anyone else want to test me today?” Hancock shouts to the gathering crowd of residents. 

“Finn was asking for it,” Daisy says from the doorway of her shop and Nora loves her a little bit more for it. 

“Good,” Hancock says, wiping his bloody knife on Finn’s pants. The crowd disperses with quiet murmurs and out of the bodies steps Nick. His coat is a little dusty and he’s got a cigarette clenched between his metal fingers. 

“I’d forgotten. No one does entrances like John Hancock,” he says with a chuckle. Nora grins at him and after a beat of silence, so does Hancock. The air is thick and charged between them, but if anyone could make sense of this, she’d be betting on Nick. 

“Why don’t we move this party to The Third Rail,” Hancock suggests. He tugs her hand and she falls into step beside him. Nick follows after them and she tries to ignore the sharp coil of anxiety curled in her stomach. It’s just Nick. And hell, if they fuck this up somehow, then she’ll open her eyes to that God damned vault again. 

No harm, no foul. Except the thought of going back to that place, of watching Shaun be ripped from Nate’s arms. Of watching the bullet that killed her husband over a dozen times. She doesn’t know if she can do it again.

“You good, sister?” Hancock mutters as they cross the threshold of his bar. It’s only then she realizes how tightly she’s hanging onto his hand. She relaxes her hand, her bones aching with the loss of tension.

“Yeah, just…” she says. A shaky breath rattles through her in a rush. Words fail her and she shuts her mouth again, her jaw tensing.

“Yeah,” he says. 

They descend into the main part of the bar and her addled mind tries not to think of a million different metaphors for what they’re really walking into. 

The belly of the beast. The nine circles of Hell. 

Tries not to think of the eyes that follow them, follow her, as they go into one of Hancock’s private rooms. 

“Don’t let anyone in here, you feel?” Hancock says, slapping a few caps into the waiting hands of the guard. Who nods and smiles at her in that friendly, inquisitive, terrifying way that the citizens of Goodneighbor always have. 

The doors snap closed behind them and Hancock gestures at the couches settled against the opposite wall. He goes straight to the mini bar in the corner and feels around in it as she and Nick sink onto one of the dusty couches. 

“You okay?” Nick asks, his servos whirring as he fixes those bright yellow eyes on her. She knows she won’t be able to lie to him, so she doesn’t bother.

“I’ve felt better,” she tells him and his face twitches into a brief smile as he claps a hand on her shoulder. 

“Haven’t we all?”

“Yeah we have,” Hancock says before the tell-tale sound of a Jet inhaler fills the air. She watches him take a drag, watches his head fall back, watches the expansion of his shoulders as he breathes. And that knot in her stomach loosens a little bit. 

“Alright, Nicky,” he says. He shoves the inhaler into one of his pockets and crosses the room to sink onto the other couch beside them. He threw an arm over the back and crossed his ankle over his thigh, the picture of ease if ever there was one. “You’ve got questions.”

“I do.”

There was a beat of silence. And then. 

“You’re caught in a time loop too, huh?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cranked this chapter out today. Never say that adversity doesn't breed creativity. Yesterday was really shitty, so I took the day to feel shitty and cry and be angry. I don't have words for the insanity that happened on Tuesday and I probably never will. But I want all of you to know that I am here if you ever need to talk. You are not alone. We are in this together and we need each other now more than ever. You can find me across social media with the username ohhstark on Instagram and Tumblr. And ohhvax on twitter. 
> 
> Enjoy the chapter. The next one will be released soon. I love you all. <3


	9. Chapter 9

“Well, shit,” Hancock says. He fishes the Jet out of his pocket again and takes another hit. She kind of wants to snatch it from him and take a hit herself. She’s too God damned sober for this. 

Nick watches them, his yellow eyes crinkling at the corners in amusement. She can see the gears through the exposed patches of his synthetic flesh turning and turning. Proof that he is alive, proof that he is here. 

“How long?” Nora asks him. Because that’s the only thing to know, really. None of this makes sense. And now that it isn’t just her and Hancock stuck in the loop, it’s different somehow. More. And infinitely more important that they figure out what the hell is going on and how to stop it.

“I’ve come back maybe four times. You?” His metal fingers dig around inside of one of his pockets for a cigarette. He finds one, lights it, and starts dragging on the filter. Dark smoke billows out of his ruined neck. 

“Not too sure, Nicky,” Hancock says and reaches out to take her hand. His fingers are warm and steady brushing against hers. She looks up at him and despite everything, he’s smiling at her. A tender thing that makes his gray eyes glitter in the light from the dim fixtures placed around the room. He looks away, but she finds that she can’t. Not yet. “It’s hard to count lives these days, you dig?”

“I dig,” Nick agrees and Nora’s laughter tumbles out of her mouth before she can help herself. She sucks in a shaking breath and puts her hand over her lips. 

“Sorry,” she chokes out. This situation is so beyond ridiculous, it’s kind of hard to wrap her mind around all of it. Is anyone else stuck in this time loop? How many time loops are there? And how do they get back to their original timeline? 

“You okay there, sister?” Hancock says, his hand wrapping around the shaking mess of her own. She’s grateful for the contact. She clings to his hand, willing the hysteria to pass. 

“I’m okay,” she says, finally, after a few minutes once she can manage it without spilling the contents of her stomach. She swallows thickly, just to be sure. “Uh, I’ve been through the loops seven, maybe eight, times.”

“Okay,” Nick says, his brows furrowed and his lips pursed in thought. “And do you remember what happened before this started?” Nora thought about it. Fought through the thick, tangled cobwebs weaved through months of reliving memory after memory. It’s been so long and it’s getting harder to piece through it to figure out what happened in the original timeline. 

And like a light bulb flickering to life in her mind, she remembers. She remembers her son and countless others burnt to ash by her own hand. She remembers the smoke and dust clawing at the back of her throat as her eyes fill with tears. She remembers the gentle press of a hand in hers as she clings to reality. 

Then darkness. Then the cryo chamber. Then Kellogg. Again and again and again.

“It happened right after I ended The Institute. I remember blowing it up and I remember the guilt. I closed my eyes and when I opened them, I was waking up in cryo again,” Nora said, blinking away tears and regret and guilt that she can’t afford right now. Hancock’s fingers tighten around her own. A hot, steady press of contact that grounds her. Reminds her that this is real and if this is real, she can fix it. With a little patience and a lot of brainstorming.

“So whatever this is, we can assume it’s an effort to fix that one decision right?” Nick says, tapping his chin with his metal hand. He shifts forward in his seat and she watches the play of light in his round yellow eyes from the cigarette nearly burnt down to the filter in his hands. She catches it from him and takes a long, slow drag. She can’t even remember the last time she’d smoked a cigarette. But it goes down and miracle of miracles, she doesn’t embarrass herself by coughing. Just takes the burning in her lungs and keeps it locked away inside. Her stomach turns and she hands the cigarette back. Nick takes it with a bemused tilt of his head. 

She’d needed something to steady her and Jet was more likely to calm her down enough to put her to sleep. Now that they were all here, together, the prospect of going to sleep and waking up back in that fucking pod was very, very real. She knew it would be impossible not to fall asleep eventually, but she had to put off the eventual as long as she could.

“We can assume all we want, but shouldn’t we do a little bit better than assume? I’m tired of comin’ back from the dead. I already look like something that walked off one of those old movie theater screens,” Hancock said and took one last huff of the Jet canister before tossing it onto the table. Nick follows the gesture with a slight curl of his lips. She can’t tell if it’s a sneer or a look of disgust or a smile. Maybe it’s all three. Hell, knowing Nick and knowing his reactions to over half the things Hancock says, she’s sure it’s a combination of all three. But he is listening. They both are. And that’s really all that matters. 

“The truth is that assuming is all we have right now. We can sit here and theorize til we’re blue in the face, but the truth is that we just don’t know how this works. All I _do_ know is that we’re together again. And I aim to keep it that way,” she says, that old ‘fearless leader’ shtick shining through all of her doubts and insecurities. She has to believe that they can get through this. She has to.

Another thing she knows, and really it’s so obvious that it should just be a given, is that the universe is a cruel, cruel bastard. And in the moment that she resolves to be optimistic about their situation, the world fragments into jagged shards of memory past, present, and future. She feels skewered like a hefty chunk of mole rat on a stick. She can feel Hancock’s fingers, can hear his raspy voice in her ear. Teasing, she thinks, but it’s hard to hear, hard to think, given the sudden roaring in her ears. Something shifts within her, just below her left shoulder and she thinks this is it. She doesn’t need to sleep for the past to come and take her again.

She can feel it. That God damned cryo chamber clinging in the folds of her skin. Dragging her forward, or pushing her back, it’s so hard to tell. The sharp smell of antiseptic is in the air, burning her nose and making her eyes sting and well up with fresh tears. For a brief, breathless, terrible moment she can feel herself going back. Traveling in time and getting sucked into the void. 

And then. And then.

It isn’t the cryo chamber. But that awful mushroom cloud billowing up and up. And it isn’t Kellogg that is the monster of this story. Not anymore.

It’s her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So.....not quite the ending we were expecting for this chapter. And by "we" I mean myself and my muse, who apparently has different ideas for this story than I do. 
> 
> I know that this update was WAY too long in the making and I sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, apologize for that. For some reason, I thought that writing this story and working on my original work for Nanowrimo would be a cinch. (Hint, hint it was not.) So I had to put this project on a bit of a hold, but November is over and I got to my 50k, even though I'm still not finished with the novel itself, so I'm taking a break from it and diving back into this. 
> 
> Hopefully you guys don't hate me too much?
> 
> Thank you for all the continued support! I really, really appreciate it and I promise the next update will not take 2 weeks to put out. <3


	10. Chapter 10

She watches the destruction of hundreds of people, of her son, again and it’s just as stomach-turning as the first time. She grits her teeth and wills her insides to steel just to keep herself from running to the side of the building and emptying the contents of her stomach. 

To her side are Desdemona and Deacon and all the rest of the Railroad remnants. They’re cheering with cracked smiles and shaking hands and it’s all she can do to stop herself from screaming at them. 

_Can’t you see? Don’t you see the hundreds of innocent lives we’ve ended? Can’t you see the streets running with blood?_

She doesn’t say that. Doesn’t say anything as the ground quakes and a solid tower of smoke and fire and ash explodes above The Institute. She thinks of all those people down there. Their faces twisted in agony as they are eviscerated. The short-circuit of their synthetic neural systems as they are burned away. 

She closes her eyes, hoping that when she does, she’ll wake up back on that couch in the Third Rail. Surrounded by Nick and Hancock and still feeling the singe of cigarette smoke in her lungs. She prays. And isn’t it funny that now she wants to go back? She wants the chance to fix this, to fix the worst mistake she ever made. Or would make? If she had anything to say about it, she would never make it at all. Let her son die. But all those people? She couldn’t give up on them. She wouldn’t. 

“Hey,” comes Hancock’s raspy voice. Her eyes fly open and take in the dark shadow of him moving in front of her and blocking the vision of the exploding Institute. As if he could protect her. As if he could shield her from this. For a moment, her heart leaps into her throat and she wonders.

_Does he know? Is it him?_

And of course it is him, the original him. But does he have the memory of dozens of past lives running through him? Does he remember dying over and over and over again? Does he remember finding her again? Fucking her in those too-short hours of twilight where they’d been blissfully alone?

When he catches an errant, stubborn lock of her hair and tucks it behind her ear. When he leans forward and the whisper of his lips brushes against hers and she leans forward to catch more of it. When he squeezes her shaking hands for comfort and warmth and reassurance. She thinks. Really thinks. 

And realizes that it doesn’t matter. She’d take him in any form, in any life. She loves him so _fucking_ much that it’s a physical ache in her chest. 

“Hey yourself,” she says and leans in for a lingering kiss to his ruined lips that makes her toes curl inside of her boots. 

She knows it can’t last. She feels Time tugging her back. Tugging her back before to that cold, dark place she’d awoken from all those months ago. 

She never thought it would be easy, seeing Kellogg’s haggard face through the cryo tube glass as they take Shaun away and shoot her husband dead. It still isn’t, but the hole in her heart isn’t so empty now. Filled as it is with Nick’s glowing yellow eyes and soft heart. With that funny little tilt of Piper’s hat and the way she closes her eyes when she feels the sunlight on her face. With the perfect slide of Hancock’s lips on her own and the fierce protective streak he holds for her and she for him. It isn’t the family she’d planned for. But she’d chosen it all the same. She collected people like broken, misfit toys all across the Commonwealth. And they’d collected her too. Bitter and angry as she is. 

This will be the last time, she knows that. And she intends to make the best of it, determined to push through the bitter rage in her heart to do the right thing for once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really short chapter. The shortest I've written in a long time, but I feel like this part of it had to be a chapter all it's own. Some really important developments. As it is, I'm not sure how much longer this fic will be from here on. I wasn't planning on ending it so short, but now that Nora knows what she has to do, I don't know how long I can stretch it out for lol. 
> 
> I was playing around with maybe covering some personal quests for some of the companions or maybe dedicating chapters to the companions and Nora's interactions with them. 
> 
> I'm not sure what I'll do...but we shall see. 
> 
> Thank you guys so, so much for your continued support. I appreciate every kudo, every comment, and every subscribe so much more than mere words can describe. I hope you enjoy this new chapter. <3


	11. Chapter 11

It’s always the same. No matter when she meets Nick Valentine. He’s a man out of time. Or machine out of time. Either way, he’s still just Nick. With his dark, golden eyes and his fedora and his long trench coat with the mud-soaked hem dragging the ground. And that grin a mile long when he teases her about the reverse damsel in distress scenario. 

She laughs and it doesn’t feel she’s replaying an old part. It doesn’t feel like she’s reliving memories. She looks at him in a new way, in a new light. She sees the anger with himself for having gotten caught in the first place. She sees the distrust. In her, in Dogmeat glued to her side and his tail going a mile a minute as he takes in Nick. But she sees hope there too. Small and flickering as it is at the corners of his eyes. 

So she slaps a pistol into his hand. Modded by hers truly just that morning at the little shop in Diamond City on her way out to rescue Nick. He tells her that they’re almost clear. And it almost, almost feels like things are starting to get back to normal. 

***

Looking at Piper never gets old. She’s a study in controlled chaos. With spare bits of paper thrown around the desk she’s made her own in Sanctuary. With the quick, sharp movement of her hands as she talks. With the curve of her lips as she grins; that sly turn of her mouth that flips Nora’s heart. Piper is so God damned young. Her heart has always been just there on her sleeve and Nora loves her for it. 

In some ways, she sees a lot of herself in Piper. But in other ways, in all the ways that count, she sees a younger, less battle-worn Nate. Optimistic and caring and too smart for her own good. That was her husband when she met him. That was her husband when he died. And it hurts to have even this small reminder of him, but it’s a good hurt. A reminder that she isn’t just adrift in this new world with the weight of ten lives on her shoulders. She has something to live for, to live up to. Even if it isn’t what she imagined it would be.

It’s still something.

***

Marcy is another one of those rare jewels she’s found and collected on her travels. She was a hard nut to crack. She’d worked Jun out months ago, but Marcy was another story. She liked her garden and she loved her husband and she’d loved her son more than anything in the world. 

That one, at least, Nora could relate to. She’d tried, during her first lifetime to make nice with the younger woman, to no avail. All of the times in between hadn’t really seemed to matter. When time set and reset itself, it seemed easy enough to toss the more difficult tasks to the wayside. But now? Now that she knows this is the last time, it seems vital to get everything right. To try to be the best person she can be.

So she sits down by Marcy every night at dinner for a week and eventually, she coaxes a smile out of the other woman.

“Cleared out Boston Public Library today. Anyone want some reading material?” Nora asks. Deacon grins as he sees an opening. But it’s Marcy’s hard voice that cuts through Deacon’s inevitably crass joke.

“Ever heard of Jane Eyre?” Marcy says. And she knows she’s grinning like a madwoman, but God damnit it’s the first non-hostile thing Marcy has ever said to her.

“Yeah, yeah, of course!” she says, maybe a little too excitedly. Marcy fixes her with a look; something half-skeptical, half-incredulous. It’s there and gone too fast and finally, she smiles. It’s small and awkward, like she’d forgotten how, but it’s there. 

***

She puts off her trip to Goodneighbor for as long as she can. But she can tell Nick is getting antsy. 

“Much as I love wandering every square inch of the ‘Wealth looking for old junk with you, I’m starting to get the feeling that you don’t want to go to Goodneighbor. Don’t you want to find your son?” Nick asks her one night when they’re huddled down on thin cots beneath the stars. The chill of Winter is still clinging in the dark places up here and the temperature is dropping now that the sun has set. Nick stokes the fire and then makes an exasperated noise when her teeth chatter and she starts rubbing her arms. He considers her a moment before lifting his arm and motioning for her to sit down next to him. 

She tries not to seem too eager as she abandons her own cot in favor of his. She ducks beneath the warm crutch of his arm and he pulls her right up against his side. 

“So,” he says, once her teeth have stopped chattering, “Goodneighbor?”

“It’s-I,” she blunders and flushes in the dim light from the fire. For a moment, she considers pulling away. Because this is too close. Too much and not enough all at once. Since this final life began, she’d been able to deal with her friends looking at her like a stranger. Preston, Piper, Deacon, even Nick. Especially Nick. And she’s terrified of walking into Goodneighbor and seeing that cautious, stunted smile on Hancock’s face after he shanks Finn for her. Polite and curious. But distant. She’s not sure she’s strong enough for it this time. 

“You wouldn’t believe me even if I told you,” she finishes and the words lack the bitter tang of irony she’d expected. They just feel like the truth. 

“Try me,” Nick says, echoing words from his own past lives. And those feel like the truth too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So....I'm thinking the next one is going to be the last chapter. It just feels like it's coming to an end and I don't want to push it past where it would naturally end. So yeah. It's been one hell of a ride and I appreciate all of you for taking it with me. 
> 
> I should be posting it by the weekend. Thank you guys so much! <3


	12. Chapter 12

When Nick passes her the cigarette, she doesn’t say no. She knows she ought to decline, but it’s not in her nature to pass up the simple pleasures. Not anymore. Not since she’s collected all of her proverbial nine lives and then some. 

They stay up half the night. Passing cigarettes back and forth, his metal hand making her shudder as it drags over her fingers. When she breathes in, she hopes the acrid burn of the smoke will turn her memories to ash inside of her. They don’t, not even close. She keeps hoping. Even as the sun crests the horizon and reveals the discarded filters cast in a circle around their makeshift camp. Even as Nick’s yellow eyes, burdened with grief, turn to the distance over her shoulder. 

She watches the play of light on his face. He’s taken the whole ‘past lives’ thing surprisingly well, given how freaked out she’d been to tell him. And she remembers that he already has another man’s life sown into the very fabric of his being. So really, if anyone would understand it’s him. 

The sun rays catch in the ruined patches of his face and she wonders about him. In a way that she never has before. 

“You can’t outrun the inevitable forever, Nora,” he says, shaking her out of her reverie. She knows it’s the truth, but _God damn_ does she find comfort in the pretty lies she tells herself. 

“I take you’re not going to let me run away from this anymore?” she asks him, already knowing the answer. His face turns back to her and he reaches up, the slightest catch in the gentle touch of his synthetic skin as he grips her shoulder. Like hesitation. Like….

“You’re scared and I can appreciate that, but this isn’t living, Nora. You have to go see him.”

“Even if he doesn’t know me? Even if…” Her breath and her words and the shake in her hands feels like hysteria. A storm building inside of her chest that cuts the words from her, a disjointed ache in her heart. The weight of Nick’s hand leaves her shoulder. 

“You’ll never know until you try,” he says. And the words, impossibly cliche as they are, take root in her heart. She nods, the smile on her face nearly too big and bright to be real. But he smiles back and that takes root too. 

***

Nora never was one to sit around and wait when she’d set her mind to something. She can feel the sharp buzz of anxiety, anticipation, just beneath her skin even as Nick forces her to sleep for a few hours. 

“No offence, but you look like shit,” he says. The words don’t sting as much, soothed as they are by the quiet smile he gives her and the way he nudges her chin with his knuckles. She swallows her reply and sinks down to lay out across her stained sleeping bag, her head pillowed by her pack. 

It takes no time at all between closing her eyes and falling asleep. And when Nick is there, his hand gentle on her shoulder as he jostles her awake, she feels well-rested all things considered. She blinks the sleep out of her eyes and is grateful when the dreams leave her too. Dreams of gaping, razor-lined maws and an infinite darkness reaching for her. Dreams of her gray-eyed ghoul reaching for her but never quite touching. Dreams of mushroom clouds and big red buttons and her son’s wizened face burnt to ash. 

She lets them all go. Lets them slip like insoluble oil down the tips of her fingers. Lets them drift away in the breeze. They aren’t real and she refuses to give even her own mind the satisfaction of having gotten under her skin. 

“Are you ready?” Nick asks her. She turns to him and hoists her over-sized pack over her shoulder before she nods her assent. It’s almost the truth. She doesn’t know if she’ll ever be ready to face this enemy. The enemy of time and the impossible web it weaves. 

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” she replies. 

They’re hours out from Boston proper and it’s slow going, especially once they hit the blown out streets of the city. They clamber over ruined buildings and dodge the raiders and super mutants that run the streets. Nick is there at her side for every step of it until he isn’t. 

She’s met a lot of fucking stupid raiders, but today isn’t her lucky day. Because these ones are clever. The head of their pack, a tall and muscled woman with streaks of pure white through her shoulder-length hair and a patch over one eye, barks out orders from the second floor of an abandoned factory. 

“Flank the girl. Cut her off!” the woman shouts. And just like that she’s pinned. Taking frag grenades that just barely miss her and leave her ears ringing. The ring of sniper rifles and pistols and shotguns pierce the air. 

“Nora!” Nick shouts, but it’s cut off almost immediately by a fresh volley of gunfire. She braces herself against the car she’s taken refuge behind and waits for a breath before ducking out of cover. She counts three raiders to her left, all clutching shotguns in practiced fingers. She turns her face to the right and takes in four more. Two of them are zeroed in on Nick’s hiding place. The other two are turned towards her. One is grinning, mania written in every line of his worn face. And the other is grinning at her like a wild man, his arm raised and a Molotov Cocktail arcing towards her through the dusty air. Tipping end over end until it hits the corner of the car. It’s about two feet off from her, but she feels the sting of glass and licking flame on her arms before she manages to duck down behind the car again. 

She doesn’t look at the damage. Just fishes a plasma grenade out of her pocket and throws it in the general direction of the four raiders straight ahead of her. She hears their shouts of alarm just before the grenade goes off in a buzz of electricity. There are two distinct screams of pain and then silence. 

“Fucking bitch!”

This time, she’s ready for them. She can hear one of them racing towards her position. When he rounds the side of the car, she kicks her leg out and catches his feet. He stumbles forward and lands in an awkward sprawl across the concrete slab peeking out of refuse and garbage and fallen walls. She takes him out with a shot to the head that leaves her spinning. She swallows down bile and turns back to her task. 

A moment later she hears the telltale crack of Nick’s modded 10 mm. She smiles when a body falls to the ground with a groan. Maybe not so clever after all.

“God fucking dammit. Get off your asses!” their leader shouts from the factory ledge. She leans up and over the car and nearly takes a shotgun blast to the face. The biggest of the raiders is running full tilt for her position. The other two have gone off to where Nick must be. She tips behind her cover again and barely has a moment to push off of the car before the raider rounds it and starts firing at her again. She swings wildly with her assault rifle and fires off a round of shots that narrowly miss him. She can hear the click of his shotgun as he loads another shell into the barrel. She takes off at a gallop towards the building across the street that’s half blown out. 

The raider growls and squeezes off another shot, catching her thigh just before she can get behind the dilapidated wall. She braces herself against the wall, her heart in her throat and her blood rushing through her veins. She can practically feel the ebb and flow of life within her. She leans out and with a deep breath, fires at his head. The bullet blows a hole through the side of his face, leaving a gaping wound where his left eye once was. His body, driven by the heady thread of momentum, takes a forward step and then collapses to the ground. Dust and the spray of blood drift through the air. 

This time, there is no holding back the bile that rushes up from the pit of her stomach. She pivots to the left and just manages to pull her hair back from her face before bile and whatever she’d downed for breakfast fly from between her shaking lips. 

When it’s done, she wipes her mouth on a spare bit of cloth she keeps in her pocket for just this sort of thing and tosses it to the wayside. She resolutely ignores her impulse to look down at her own wound and runs back to where she’d last seen Nick. 

“Nora!” she hears him calling. Maybe it’s just her imagination, but his voice sounds thin and wane in the dying light of the Commonwealth sunset. She feels the need to get to him like a physical ache beneath her skin.

“I’m here,” she says, careful to stoop as she picks her way across the marred battlefield. She can still hear the raider leader muttering to herself from the ledge of the factory. She doesn’t get the chance to go to him. The last of the raiders on the ground lunges at her from behind a dumpster and shoves a knife into her stomach. She pulls away on instinct and swipes at them with the butt of her gun, catching them on the edge of their face. She hears the crunch of breaking bone, but doesn’t wait around to find out if they were completely out of the fight. She can hear the sharp whistle of bullets past her as she runs. Past broken and bloodied bodies. Past ruined shells of frag mines. Until she finally sees Nick on the edge of the chaos. 

He raises his arms to her and she can see the hysteria in his yellow glowing eyes. She swallows the urge to cry and pushes herself those last few feet. He catches her in his arms and she has only a moment to soak in the dry, warm oil smell of him before he pivots with her in his arms and takes off at a run down the street. She loses track of time as they make their stumbling way towards Goodneighbor. Nick just keeps pushing forward and when he pauses to throw her arm around his shoulder, she realizes that he’s the only thing keeping her from collapsing to the ground. 

“Just a little longer, Nora,” he says. She catches the worried pucker of his lips and the divot between his eyebrows and knows that it’s bad. She can feel her blood-soaked clothes now. Can feel every sliced-open sinew and muscle and blood vessel in the knife wound of her stomach. Can feel the burn like raised coals in the gunshot wound to her thigh. 

“I’ve got you, Nora. Just a little while longer,” he urges her and it only occurs to her now that the corners of her vision have started to turn black. But she watches him. Forces her eyes to stay open. And forces words from her mouth that she hopes he can hear. 

_I know._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's the end of this act of the story. Probably (read: definitely) going to be working on a sequel to this. There's definitely some things that are left unresolved that I want to move towards. I can't believe I'm actually thinking about doing a sequel. You guys have no idea how huge this is. Considering I haven't been able to write on a consistent basis until this year since I was 18...this is definitely a big deal for me. 
> 
> I wouldn't have gone anywhere without my loyal fans. I appreciate you guys so much. I cry every time I get a comment, kudo, subscription, and bookmark. You guys have no idea how much your support means to me! 
> 
> Be looking out for the sequel. Not sure about titles or really where it might go, but I'm excited for it! I hope you all are too. :) <3


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